DIALECT AND WORD MEANINGS

[Stanley]

Essential if you want a good draught Bodge..... I have always 'riddled' and used the word. The circular wire mesh screen you use for soil has always been a riddle as far as I know.

[Tripps]

Nice moment today in the Spectator. Use of the phrase gas lighting

I noticed thiswhen it made the headlines last week, and as did Dot Wordsworth, and I didn't understand it.
It was not what I understood by the expression. Nice that she agrees with me. Think you may need to register to read it, but worth it I'd say. I like the feature - she did one on tergiversate once and of course, I've been a fan ever since.

[Stanley]

I heard it as well David and was puzzled. I put it down to the fact that the meaning of words changes so quickly in the hothouse of politics, so many words don't mean what we thought they did.
I remember seeing the film at the Savoy, Heaton Moor, very frightening as the woman watched the gas light dim on the stairs as her husband went about his nefarious activities next door.

[plaques]

Didn't know that meaning Tripps. Still struggling for a logical connection. Beginning to think is the true meaning of what is being said lost because of the confused 'fake' information that surrounds it. As dim as a Toc H lamp 'dimwittedness, slow on the uptake and comes from "Not a bright light'. taken to extremes. In short I don't know what it means.

[Tizer]

We must have short memories on OG! See this post: Gaslighting

[Stanley]

Indeed, but I think he makes a mistake when he gives the film as an example. I think the film is the origin of that usage of gaslighting. It was a scary film! (I'll bet it's available on Youtube....) (I looked, it is from the British National Film Archive. LINK.
I've just heard a presenter say he was struggling to think of a collective noun for bridges. I can help. He should look at Henry James Hopkins' wonderful book 'A Span of Bridges'.

[Stanley]

God knows why but 'Widdershins'. (LINK)
"Widdershins comes from Middle Low German weddersinnes, literally "against the way" (i.e. "in the opposite direction"), from widersinnen "to go against", from Old High German elements widar "against" and sinnen "to travel, go", related to sind "journey""
Witches were said to go widdershins as they danced round a fire....

[Cathy]

I’m reading a book that is set in rural England, and they keep mentioning a ‘ha ha’. Had to look it up.

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[Tizer]

It works a bit like an infinity pool, Cathy - looking from the house's grounds you can't see any break between the grass inside and that outside but it still acts as a boundary fence.

[Cathy]

The only pic I found of a ha ha was viewed from the other way, but yes I can certainly see how it would appear to be never ending from the other way, and keep wandering stock where it belongs.

[Stanley]

I can still hear Betty, the upper class lady teaching me to play croquet in Lincolnshire, shouting to me that my balls were in the ha ha.....



Donald and Betty, he was a retired Para Reg officer, a brigadier I think. They cheated but that's par for the course evidently in croquet!

[PanBiker]

My mate Roger is a champion croquet player, a retired tackler by trade.

[Tizer]

Cathy, look closely at this photo. You can just make out the line of the haha running across the photo. haha

[Stanley]

That's a good one Tiz, very effective.

[Tizer]

They're so good that you have to be careful of kids running straight over the edge without realising. It's a wonder they don't get forced to put up safety signs these days! But they might not be effective... DANGER HAHA

[Stanley]

[Stanley]

Just heard a presenter on R4 say 'bruffton' instead of Broughton. (In a repeat of the news item later the same reporter pronounced it correctly, somebody must have had a word!)
Note in Barcroft papers by Wilfred Spencer. "A whelp is the name given to upright stones in an arch". The only meaning I knew was an archaic name for a pup.

[Cathy]

In always thought the upright (top) stones in an archway were called keystones.

[Stanley]

They are Cathy but there are a lot of other upright stones in the arch. I think that's what was being referred to. Remember that the word was used by Ambrose Barcroft in the 18th century. I suspect it's regarded as archaic now.
Later on today Nick Robinson repeated the 'bruffton' mistake, the word must not have reached him yet.

[Whyperion]

Note in Barcroft papers by Wilfred Spencer. "A whelp is the name given to upright stones in an arch". The only meaning I knew was an archaic name for a pup.

Britannica seems to use "upright supports". These may also be pillars or abutments. Is he refering to a 'Flat Arch' - presumable with additonal lintel support as a feature to give uprights accross the span, or the side supporting structure (which is often not in the arch as such).
Thinking - normally upright supports are single stones worked into one shape or a number of ashlar stones in the abutment worked either fine as to need no mortar, or with a thin mortar jointing. I can see in my head an arch with 'uprights' atop each other, but if not of relative large length, they tend to be flattish piled atop each other, as can brick ones often sculpted to rounded or similar shapes.



I cannot see a clear reference to the stones that make up the pillars in architectural or masonery language on the internet.

[Tripps]

Take care out there. Avoid those misperceptions. Stay woke

A realtor group in Texas says it is going to stop using the word "master" to describe bedrooms and bathrooms because of the term's association with slavery. The Houston Association of Realtors says its listing service will now use the terms "primary bedroom" and "primary bath," CBS reports.

The group said in a statement said some members considered the term racist, other thought it was sexist, and the "consensus was that Primary describes the rooms equally as well, whilst avoiding any possible misperceptions.

[Stanley]

Good Grief! as Snoopy would have said.....
"I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul......" This poem will have to be expunged from the record.
Remember when we used to use Nigger Black as the description of a colour?
Craven farming had a language of its own and preserved many words that had a Nordic origin. One came to mind this morning 'huggin' meaning hip bone particularly in cattle but applicable to humans as well.
The only mention I can find is in a dictionary of Yorkshire dialect which reports it and 'huggon' as dialect words for the hip bone of a beast. (LINK)

[Tizer]

I wonder where lacksadaisical, or lackadaisical, came from?

[Tripps]

lack a day lack a day Sounds like it came from a Carry On film.

I suspect it was a shade of brown rather than black.

[Whyperion]

Wilfred Spencer, confused or too specific?
Whelpstone ( Whelp Stone) Crag - Slaidburn ( weathered Kinder Scout grits )
maybe panbiker might like to try a walk there : https://fellscape.co.uk/walk10.html